


Disappear Into The Sea (of Truth and Lies)

by AlfaNumeric



Series: I've Stopped Time and Everything Is At My Mercy [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Before Golden Age, Blood and Gore, No Smut, Noctra-13 - Freeform, Original Character(s), Over-Researched, Parent Death, Psychological Horror, Rated For Violence, Semi-Origin Story I Thought Of On The Toilet, This one gets really dark I'm sorry, Took Canon And Went Slightly To The Left, no editing we die like men, way too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlfaNumeric/pseuds/AlfaNumeric
Summary: She didn't want to remember.(See, I can write serious things sometimes.)
Series: I've Stopped Time and Everything Is At My Mercy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553626
Comments: 5
Kudos: 2





	Disappear Into The Sea (of Truth and Lies)

Akemi’s eyelashes filtered the world like great branches in her view, splitting detail into hues of green and gray, the world around her violently convulsing and throwing itself to and fro as the young woman lay in rest, her mind a calm in the storm her senses perceived. Streaks of white and blue made cameo in the girl’s frustum, her ears feeling movement to her left. She’d lost track of time, a habit she tells herself she’d like to kick one day. As far as she was concerned, it had either been an hour, or a few minutes, and she hardly cared which.

So she sat there, her arms on top of her bag, stowing her paltry belongings in her lap as the train carried her along to her destination. As she felt like she’d lose consciousness completely, a robotic voice crackled to life above her.

“Now arriving at: Union Station.”

Akemi’s eyes fluttered open, turning her vision to the stringent red LED display above her. The words “Union Station” scrolled across it at a leisurely pace, confirming that she’d heard right: this was her stop. She dusted her navy-blue skirt off, picked herself up, and swung her bag over her shoulder, making herself scarce as she prepared to disembark the train.

The aging metal beast began to pull its momentum back, sliding slowly to a halt, and the doors gave a sharp hiss as they pulled themself open. Akemi lent right of way to the other denizens, not so much out of courtesy as anxiety. She’d learned to keep scarce, avoid being too rowdy, too stiff, too sharp. As far as she could remember, nobody had told her this… but she learned.

A chill hit Akemi as she stepped off the train into the bustling Union Station. She did her best to tune out the riff-raff as she focused on her destination, scrawled onto the notebook in her bag. “2934 Wellington Street, Toronto,” the section of her mind she’d allocated to remembering this told her. She pushed forward, making her way to the escalator that would take her to the ground level, before she was stopped.

A man in a blue uniform, cuffs banded with gold thread, put out an arm in front of her. Akemi gasped, looking the large figure in the eye. His hair was raven black, The sudden stop pushed the hood off of her head, exposing her fine raven hair, much like the man’s, and her angled visage, eyebrows furrowed in concern. The man didn’t look like he was out to hurt her, but these things tended to make her worried nonetheless.

“Hey, miss, can I see your ticket?” the man asked, moving his hand from in front of Akemi to an outstretched position in front of her. “Sorry for the stop, I tried to find you on the train but it looks like you just slipped out.”

“Yeah, for sure,” said Akemi. She looked to the man’s hand, then to her bag, then to the man’s face, then to her bag again, before reaching into it and scrounging around for a while. Try as she might, however… the ticket was nowhere to be found.  _ Oh, gods _ , Akemi thought to herself.  _ Now I’m in for it… _

“I… I appear to have dropped it…” she said, her voice quaking. TIme stopped as her brain formulated any possible way out of the interaction, away from the man should the moment require, how the bag in her hand could be used as a wea--

“I see.” The guard’s voice interrupted Akemi’s train of thought. From what he could tell, Akemi wasn’t the type to intentionally fare-hop. “May I see your ID then? I’ll have a guy look on the train for it, and if we don’t find it, we’ll contact you about repaying your fare.”

Akemi’s eyes refocused. “Y-yeah. Absolutely.” She pulled her wallet out of her bag, sliding her lilac ID card out of its leftmost pocket. She handed it to the guard.

He looked it over, trained eyes searing its details into his mind:

KANAZAWA, AKEMI

361 WATER STREET

KITCHENER, ON

N2H 5A5

Akemi’s photo stared back at the guard in grayscale, a far more neutral expression than the woman currently held on its glossed surface.

The guard handed the card back to Akemi. “Alright, we’ll contact you when we find it, or within the next week.”

Akemi wasn’t completely reassured. “Am I in trouble?”

The guard chuckled, a warmth creeping into his voice. “Nah, this kind of thing happens all the time. Worst case scenario, we just need you to pay your fare again.” He gestured to the escalator. “Have a nice day, Ms. Kanazawa.”

Akemi nodded, clutching her bag a bit less tightly. “Thanks. You too.” She turned to the escalator, and went on her way.

Once outside, the Toronto cold frosted Akemi’s skin to the bone, her jacket only taking the edge off the biting wind. She felt her coat become hard as metal, her joints creaking as if poorly lubricated, and her feet become almost entirely numb in her shoes. If she’d known the weather was going to be this bad, she’d have rescheduled. Why’d her shrink have to live so far away, anyways? She gave a sharp exhale through her nose. No point in complaining, she figured. At least the roads were pretty clear today.

The psychologist’s office was located fairly close to the station, thankfully, merely in the nearest residential area. From the outside, it could have been mistaken for any other apartment building in the metropolitan sprawl, but on the inside, it was readily clear that nobody actually lived there.

The walls were wallpapered a solid brown, the floor a stubby, wear-resistant carpet clearly meant for people to wear shoes on it. Overall, the place looked very much like somebody an affluent old person spent a good deal of money on somebody to keep it looking presentable. A blend of perfume, lingering tobacco, and paint marked any surface it could sink into. The walls were decorated with drawings sent to the doctor by his younger patients, toys and books sprawled across the floor. Her appointment was quite late, so nobody else was around, and the doctor was waiting for her when she stepped in.d 

Dr. Lucas Furtran was the psych that Akemi had been seeing since she was a teenager, a kindly old man with a bald head and sun-kissed skintone. Hardly orange by any sense, but it was clear that this was a man that spent time outside when he had any to spare. He waved Akemi over, a smile on the man’s face. Akemi met his gaze, picking up her step to cross the waiting room into the doctor’s office.

“So, Akemi.” Furtran spoke in a friendly, yet professional voice as he sat back in his upholstered leather chair. The walls behind him were lined with books on various subjects, from psychology and sociology to more esoteric things for a psychologist, like quantum mechanics and computer science. Akemi barely gave any thought to it, and figured that Furtran was merely a man who liked to keep his interests broad.

After Akemi had taken her seat opposite his mahogany desk, in a significantly less impressive but comfortable enough cloth chair, held up on bent steel legs, Furtran finished his greeting.

“What’s new and exciting?” He folded his arms on his desk, fingers enmeshed and knuckle-side-forward.

Akemi met eyes with the psychologist for a few moments, before they wandered as they are wont to do. “It uh, got cold real fast.”

Furtran laughed. “Yeah, winter decided it was going to happen fast, this year. Hope you were warm enough in that jacket.”

She wasn’t, but she tried not to worry the doc. “I lived, so that’s that, I suppose.”

“Indeed. Now.” He picked a folder up off of the table. Akemi’s file. It was quite full, papers and medical records causing the card piece to bulge nearly as wide as it had allowed. “I’m aware you had intentions to… see Doctor Freumann down the way. About the…” Furtran squinted his eyes, age apparently having caused them to become less than reliable.

“Asclepius Project?”

Akemi nodded.

“That Freumann’s an odd fellow. Not sure what he’s going on about most of the time. But uh,” Furtran took a pen from a nearby wire holder, and a paper out of the top of the pile barely contained in the folder.

“He’s a talented man. I’m sure whatever he’s got planned would be of great help to your anxiety.” He gave Akemi a bright smile before putting his signature on the bottom of the page, sliding it across the table.

Akemi took the sheet. A recommendation of services, from Dr. Furtran to Dr. Freumann, dated December 2nd, 2097. She slid it into her bag, and looked back to Furtran, whose hand was extended across the desk. She took it, and allowed the doctor to vigorously shake it.

“Alright, Ms. Kanazawa. I’ll send a new prescription to the pharmacy over in Kitchener. See you back here in a few weeks.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it.”

“Well, we’ve been seeing each other long enough that I know when your intuition is more than a hunch. Take care, now.”

Akemi turned around, and walked out the door of the doctor’s office.

As she left, time slowed to a crawl.

Akemi stopped in her tracks.

A voice called from behind her. Saying naught words of any salience, nor any name she could recognize, but merely vowels a human shouldn’t be able to produce.

Akemi was frozen.

A figure paced its way towards her.

Akemi’s body snapped the other direction.

The office was gone, replaced by a corridor made of pale sheet metal and chrome pipes.

A figure paced its way towards her.

Akemi’s body snapped forwards. The corridor continued.

A figure paced its way towards her.

She bid her limbs to run, rusted knees pushing off of the ground as if through thick mud.

The figure’s form emerged, swallowing light from every direction. It shambled, its misproportioned limbs dragging themselves across the green metal floor.

Akemi ran.

The wooden door stood farther away than her office was tall.

Akemi ran.

The creature raised its arm, a mass of flesh stretched tight over a bone curved like an archer’s bow, forming an unnatural point.

Akemi’s body began to deform, points forming in her flesh stretching out behind her as if they were failing to keep up. The door came closer.

The creature’s skin turned to rock-hard chitin, its head split into murderous jaws, its arm pulling out at its point into three mangled claws.

Akemi opened the door. The city was gone.

In its place, a pit. Grey as ash. The sky black as tar, not a star nor sun nor moon in sight.

Akemi jumped, her stiff legs turning it into more of a fall, tumbling through the dust at the bottom. 

When she looked back, the office and the creature had disappeared. The pit continued endlessly, as it no doctor’s office had existed in the first place.

She willed herself to stand, and examined her surroundings, her heart pounding in her chest.

Her jacket was gone, replaced with a plain white tanktop. Her jeans were still there, but appeared to have grown about three sizes. Off in the distance, an immense tower stretched into the nocturnal sky.

She gazed at the structure, the only feature to be seen for miles, and her body began to move towards it. She didn’t want to. She had to. So she did.

When she looked back to the horizon, a woman had materialized in front of her, dressed in the same garb as her. Her skin was pale, hair a chestnut brown, eyes a bright gold. She pulled her hand back and shoved it into Akemi, sending her to the ground.

Akemi’s view blurred, the wind knocked out of her from the blow. When she refocused, she was looking at her hand, a large, grisly knife having appeared in it. She gripped its leather handle, gaping in horror at its wicked, torn blade.

The woman was on top of her in moments, grabbing Akemi by the throat. She looked into her eyes, completely emotionless, her grip like a vice.

Akemi whipped her arm forward instinctively, driving the blade of the knife into the woman’s arm.

The woman screamed, but her expression did not change, and her grip did not loosen. Akemi pushed the knife into the woman’s flesh, well into what should have felt like bone, and beyond, the metal slicing directly through the arm like being drawn through water. Murky crimson blood coated her chest, the woman simply catching herself on her other arm and standing back up, seemingly unbothered.

Akemi also stood, grabbing the disembodied hand on her neck and tearing it off, knuckles cracking as they inverted under the force of Akemi’s pull. She looked at her attacker, blood pouring out of the stub on her forearm as she advanced, poised to make no surrender.

Akemi’s blood boiled, her grip on the knife tightened, and like powered by mechanical force, she threw herself at her opponent, digging the knife directly into the woman’s throat. The woman gargled and sputtered, her face snapping into one of fear, one of remorse, one of humanity. She looked Akemi in the eye.

“No,” she mouthed, blood beginning to bubble into her mouth and down her chin. She grabbed her throat with her remaining hand, plummeting to the ground. Akemi’s pose hadn’t changed, and when the adrenaline subsided, she screamed at the corpse on the ground.

The pit disappeared. The black void opened itself into a kitchen, a home, the woman’s dismembered body lay on the linoleum floor, her blood coating the tile.

“Mom!!” screamed Akemi, dropping the knife, sinking to her knees and shaking her mother’s lifeless body.

“Mom, come on! Say something! Please!”

She looked at the stump on the corpse, disgust coursing through her body. She dropped the corpse, fighting back tears. Footsteps came clattering through the hallway behind Akemi.

Akemi’s body twisted itself to the floor where the knife had been.

The knife wasn’t there.

Akemi’s body twisted further, a full one hundred and eighty degrees, to look the source of the footsteps in the eye. The window just beyond showed the tower, a blue light coursing through the immense structure.

The man from the station appeared, dressed in a grey shirt and Akemi’s jacket.

“Dad??” asked Akemi. She looked down.

The man was carrying the knife.

Akemi threw herself to the right, hiding under the family kitchen table.

“No,” she screamed. “No!”

The man put his hand under the table, and as he lifted his hand, it vanished from sight.

Akemi went silent, her eyes wide, her chest split open down the middle as metal tore through it. Pain ripped through her, flesh tearing towards either side, and it began to travel much further than should be possible. Her chest turned itself inside out, a brilliant white liquid where her organs and blood should have been. It filled her vision, her consciousness fading, her eyes shut firmly to pure, white light.

  
  


-***-

The Exo Noctra-13 opened her eyes, taking in a sharp breath as she threw herself out of her bed.

“Mom!” she screamed.

She exhaled, mechanical hand lifted to her chest. It was intact, as it should have been. Not a piece out of place. No knife but the one in its holster beside her bed. No man in the jacket. No kitchen, no office, no train station, no pit, no Tower.

Noctra put her head back on her pillow. She’d had just about enough of these Light-forsaken dreams. A hand went to her forehead. Why’d she even need to sleep, anyways? Why couldn’t Braytech have just made that not a thing she needed to do?

She sighed. She would have to take a visit to Ana and Rasputin soon. They might have something to say about this.

Noctra never got to know who Akemi was. It was, quite literally, two lives ago. Memories of even a single reset ago, let alone their human life, were exceedingly rare for the Exo. She wasn’t even all that old by Exo standards, but the nightmares kept bringing on the sickness. She used to think she wanted to remember.

As it turned out, she did  _ not _ want to remember. __

**Author's Note:**

> Song title source: Draw the Emotional - Tsukiyo ni Mau Omoi (Emotions Dancing in the Moonlight)


End file.
